Dutch Lager in 1940's Britain

Here's some confirmation, in the form of newspaper ads, of the presence of foreign Lager in Britain just after WW II.

Remember how an earlier article claimed that the imports would mostly be Lager at 1 shilling a bottle. It was more expensive than that, according to this advert:

Gloucestershire Echo - Wednesday 26 May 1948, page 3.

That works out to 1s 4d per bottle, presumably a half pint. (Golden Tree, incidentally, is a literal very liberal translation of the Dutch brewery's name: Oranjeboom.) To contextualise that, a pint bottle of Charrington's Toby Ale would have cost you the same, and, at 1033º, was a similar gravity to Oranjeboom.

Over-priced Lager. It's a recurring theme from the 1860's to the 1980's.

Here are some details of Oranjeboom from a few years later:

Oranjeboom in the UK
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price	size	package	Acid-ity	FG	OG	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1957	Oranjeboom	Dutch Lager		half	bottled	0.04	1007.5	1035.4	10	3.62	78.81%
1957	Oranjeboom	Dutch Pilsener	1/9d	half	bottled	0.02	1007.8	1033.3	9	3.31	76.58%
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002

Oranjeboom was really pushed in the UK in the 1980's. That's probably not unconnected from the fact that they were at the time owned by Allied Breweries. Oranjeboom had two breweries in Holland, one in Rotterdam and another in Breda. If I remember correctly, the Rotterdam brewery closed around when I lived in the city in 1987.

The Breda brewery closed a few years back, after it had fallen into the hands of Interbrew. It wasn't a great loss. It's beers were pretty awful, especially the Pils. Down at the same disgusting level as Bavaria and Dommelsch.